S456 ARCHIVES: RHS Paints the Walls

~~ the following is a piece I did for the 2013-14 school year of "The Ram Pride," Ringgold High School's school newspaper ~~

A walk through the halls of Ringgold High School reveals walls covered with fun and interesting paintings. These paintings are called murals, and they are craftily splattered on the walls by Ringgold's twelfth grade class of art students every year. A new feature added last year means that, in addition to new murals done directly on the walls, some students' work will be on large boards that are temporarily hung on the walls, and then given to the respective artists to keep. I decided to talk to some of the artists as well as their teacher, Mr. Lewis, to check up on their progress this year.

Meagan Hyslop and Jessie Martin are both doing murals on walls: the former by Ms. Hess's room on the first floor, and the latter by the staircase next to the elevator on the second floor. Meagan describes her mural-in-process as "a big flower," that is "separated into fourths." She joked that dividing it into the four parts was done to "put some symbolism" into her work, and described her lost week of progress due to accidents in her technique. Jessie is doing a horse that, and she wants to be very clear, is "not a unicorn," and "not My Little Pony [related]." She comically described her horse as more of a piece of LGBT propaganda, in reference to its rainbow-coloring. Both expect that their mural will take them quite a long time to complete, with the eight week deadline looming over them.

Two students working on the boards are The Ram Pride's very own comedy-guru Nicholas Greco and Nick Trocano. Their boards can be seen in the last hallway of the fourth floor where the art rooms are located. Greco is doing "two flamingoes flying over a sunset into a portal." According to Greco, "it sounds good but doesn't look good." He does say, however, that "it's been pretty easy so far." Trocano told me his mural is of the professional football player JJ Watt, but with the colors stylistically altered. He says he "like[s] the effect." Trocano also said, additionally, "Hi Mom!".

Ringgold's beloved art teacher is always lively and excited to do his job. He says that the murals are "going great" so far, this year. He also claims that "they get better every year." Thankfully, he assured me that there haven't been any horror stories like paint spills and ladder falls, besides the facetious claim that the Trocano boy had been eating some paint. Lewis also says that there has been "a lot of good cooperation from the other students" in the halls. Mr. Lewis asserts that the "murals are a lot of work," but that he doesn't let that get him down.

The obvious question to ask is which of the murals in progress is his favorite.

His obvious answer is "they're all my favorites."